Is your pension safe?

[mfcorey1]

snip

Nearly 80% of the private pension plans covered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., or PBGC, are underfunded, to the tune of $740 billion. The news is even worse among the nation's largest companies. Only 18 defined benefit pension plans offered by companies in Standard & Poor's 500 benchmark are fully funded.
More than 1,400 companies shut down their pension plans in fiscal year 2011, compared with 1,200 in 2009, according to the PBGC. An additional 152 plans failed, meaning they were terminated without enough money to pay promised benefits and were taken over by the PBGC. The PBGC itself, which is funded by employer-paid insurance premiums, is running a $26 billion deficit.
Public pension funds are underfunded by at least $1 trillion, according to a report by the State Budget Crisis Task Force. To close the gap, 35 states have reduced pension benefits for their employees, and half have increased worker contributions to their plans, according to a report released in March by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Three states -- Georgia, Michigan and Utah -- have implemented hybrid plans that include defined contribution plans, similar to 401k's, that shift some investment risk to workers.
Even fully funded retirement plans aren't exempt. General Motors, once considered the model for running a solid pension plan, shocked its salaried retirees by announcing it was offloading their pensions to Prudential Financial. About 42,000 retirees had to make the difficult decision whether to take a lump-sum settlement or trust Prudential to send them monthly checks.

"These are the folks who thought they were totally protected, and then the company lays this on them," Friedman said. GM's move may give other companies the "green light" to consider similar actions, she said.

Traditional pensions are on the wane, but plenty of people still have them. Private plans cover nearly 44 million people, according to the PBGC, and public plans cover about 23 million (15 million active members and 8 million annuity recipients), according to the Census Bureau.

http://money.msn.com/retirement-plan/is-your-pension-safe-weston.aspx

[NNN0LHI]

1. I am actually more concerned for people collecting public pensions

Because the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. does not cover their pensions. And most are not eligible for SS either.

And cities are going belly up all over the place now.

I am not an active or retired public worker but this still terrifies me.

Don

[belcffub]

6. I am part of New Yorks pension system

which actually seems pretty safe right now... over the years anytime anyone has tried to touch it that have lost in court...

just need to keep the state from going bankrupt... then all deals are off...


And I know we actually get SS and our pensions... my father-in-law just started collecting SS and has been receiving his pension for 7 years now... what are the rules on collecting both... who doesn't get to collect...

[Capt. Obvious]

2. Pension?

What is this word you speak of?

[HiPointDem]

3. no one's pension is safe from the thieving 1-percenters.

[byeya]

4. The FED's interest rate suppression, QE1&2, aimed at bailing out the banksters, has made it hard

for those managing pension funds to maintain growth in the pension funds as they have to do in order to be able to pay the expected pensions of retiring employees. The people who are counting on monthly checks based on the many years of work and the contributions they and their employers have paid into the systems are being impoverished by this intentional rate suppression. 10 Year Treasuries don't even cover inflation before taxes.

This is a covert example of the many being shafted for the benefit of the ethically challanged few in my opinion.

[christieharts]

5. Spam deleted by Violet_Crumble (MIR Team)